Short-form Video Content Marketing

Social media has stirred a great change in how people consume information. Today, content consumption across digital media has become an infinite scrolling habit. To break away and grab attention, content which acts as thumb-stoppers is the priority. But how do these marketers do it? Short-form video content is the new age attention-grabbing form of advertising that has become increasingly popular. Here’s how you can use short-form video ads to your advantage to grow your business and earn the chance to leg up on your competition by engaging your audience.

What are Short-form Video Ads?

Short-form video content is an effective marketing tool. Developing a solid video content strategy for a business is a needful marketing armour that marketers shouldn't dismiss. Any video up to 2.5 minutes in length can be considered short-form. It is short enough to hold a viewer's attention span but long enough to get your brand vision across in an engaging way. Short-form video content is usually found on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, and Instagram. Brands can also leverage this type of content for their websites & blogs. A Facebook research showed that 6-second ads had 11% higher ad recall, granted a 12% rise in return on ad spend, and improved video completion rates by 271% than longer-form ads.

Trends to Hop On

While the short-form video is mainly known for its entertainment value, you can adapt it to align the trends with your brand. It requires taking a more authentic, human, and creative approach to marketing. People love to consume User-Generated Content. Instead of using too many resources, brands can publish videos that evoke emotion in consumers as they relate to it. It's also a cost-effective method.  Educational videos like DIYs & How-To's, work great with viewers, as they present excellent value addition. Making education a priority in marketing strategy, brands can improve lead generation & build brand loyalty. Behind the scenes (BTS) videos offer authenticity and transparency to consumers. They tend to feel more connected as businesses pull back the veil and engage with the audiences much more personally.

Popular Short-form Video Formats

Everyone is bombarded with a variety of short-form video advertisements today. They vary in terms of timing, content, and the message they impart. Therefore, it’s recommended to keep experimenting with all formats. Three popular ones are mentioned below.

• 6 seconder Bumpers: These are unskippable video advertisements spanning 6 seconds which we usually come across on YouTube.
• 15-30 seconder vertical videos/thumb-stoppers: These span anywhere between 10 to 30 seconds. They employ power-punched info intending to change your perception towards the said product or service.
• Reels/Dubs/TikToks: These are short videos accompanied by hashtags that people make across different platforms to create entertaining and unifying content. Similarly, marketers use it for promotional purposes.

How to Use Short-form Video Ads?

Just like Instagram's reels feature, brands need to find similar engaging tactics that are crisp and powerful to capture their audience’s attention. It helps analyse behavioural data to identify accounts users might want to follow. Marketers should use them to announce sales and exclusive deals by focusing on originality and fun rather than the quality of your videos. Doing this will lead to high engagement for your brand’s reels videos. Brands must align their social media handles to successfully craft an authentic voice that resonates with their target audience by showcasing their business personality and values that differentiate them. Further, reels and shorts are home to many strange and fantastical trends; brands should jump on them and even get a chance to get featured in the explore feed. Don’t forget to apply a unique hashtag.

How are they beneficial? 

Video content strategy offers an opportunity to humanise and personalise your brand identity. As a medium, it's essentially more immersive; the act of viewing a video is, in itself, an experience for customers. A short-form video accelerates media boundaries, presenting viewers with an effortless way of consuming information. In addition, the format lends itself to a more creative way of communicating that's intended to excite and inspire them. Short-form videos also boost your SEO and Google rankings. YouTube videos usually rank high in Google search results, and the most popular videos on YouTube are short-form. Therefore, inserting videos in your website's landing pages can help extend the time visitors stay on your page, contributing to search engine rankings. 

Final Words

The desire to be trending is always tempting. However, there are plenty of ways to adopt short-form videos into your advertising strategy. Utilising short-form videos for your content marketing strategy can further broaden your audience and encourage you to engage with those already supporting your brand on social media. Relevant, well-crafted videos call to grab users' attention. By taking advantage of each platform and practising some of the techniques above, you can interact better with your audience and more personally, resulting in higher engagement, more impressions, and conceivably, more customers.